Time to Say Goodbye
by Lelila Solo
Summary: In anticipation of the Season 8 Finale, the amazing J.M. Flowers and myself have collaborated on a fic portraying our thoughts about the potential outcome. Rating T for now because we aren't sure where this is going.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: In speculation for the impending Season 8 Finale - the amazing J. M. Flowers and myself have decided to collaborate on a fic that portrays our thoughts on what could potentially happen. We aren't sure how long this will be. But we hope that you all enjoy our short little drabbles. We sincerely hope that you enjoy our little bout of fun :) For those of you waiting on updates on my other works, I promise that they will come this summer. This semester has been killer.

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Quick, quick, like on children. Tie the knot before they know what's happening; tourniquet to make the vein pop. Plunge the needle in at forty-five degrees. Then wait.

It's fast and dirty, clinical, like in the bathroom with Jackson. The heat that fills her is similar, too: a different sort of wonderful. She slumps back against the door as it parades through her bloodstream - the only thing she had left. When she closes her eyes, she prays that Jesus will still welcome her home.

* * *

The halls are quiet. Too quiet for the middle of the day, but Callie attributes the ghostly calm to the absence of doctors on their way to Boise. It's weighing down on her nonetheless, making the last half hour of her shift drag out. Heavy eyelids are telling her to sleep, but she needs cast padding to prepare for tomorrow. Arizona had been emotionally exhaustive, and Nick will most likely be gone before she returns. Arizona should have stayed, but she refused to let Karev near the case. Callie sighs; the door to the supply closet is jammed. Today is one for the record books. Squaring her shoulders, she shoves it open.

Dread leaks into her stomach the second she flips on the lights. Legs, covered in dark blue jeans, jut out from behind the door. She's suddenly wide awake, letting the door fall closed to reveal a slumped form. A tourniquet is wrapped around the pale arm, haphazardly knotted. Dropping to her knees quickly, Callie touches two fingers to the cool neck. No pulse. There is no rhythmic rise and fall to the chest. She brushes the red hair out of April's face. Eyes are closed. She gently cradles her head as she lifts her away from the door. Throwing it open again, she screams down the silent hall for help.

* * *

He thinks he might be falling backwards, straight through the phone and the voice on the other end of the line telling him the plane never landed in Boise. He stumbles into a chair instead, knuckles getting whiter with the force he uses to clutch the receiver.

It should've taken them an hour and a half. It's been almost three.

"I'll call the airport," he says.

"We already did, Chief Hunt." The chief of surgery at Boise, who called him a week ago, asking for help. His voice is just as gruff now. "TSA lost contact with the pilot an hour and forty-five minutes ago."

Halfway there.

"Thank you," he manages to choke out, though he's not sure why.

Her body falling back against the open conference room door is what turns him around. She watches his face twist from pain to bravery. She wasn't supposed to hear that. "Doctor Torres, what is it?"

"Hunt," she says, her voice wary. "Who was that?"

He sets the phone into its cradle. "Just business."

"Why are you calling the airport?" Callie questions.

He hesitates too long responding. "Shipment got lost."

"Dammit Hunt! Don't lie to me!" she snaps, charging forward. "I saw your face. What happened?"

The conflict of interest plays out in his eyes. She has family on that plane too. "The plane never landed. The TSA lost contact with them an hour and forty five minutes ago."

"What?" she says, sinking into an adjacent chair around the large oak table. They are at eye level. The implications are dredging through her mind. "April Kepner is in Trauma 3. She overdosed. I found her in a supply closet. She might not make it."

"What?"

"Trauma 3, Doctor Hunt." Callie swallows the lump in the back of her throat. Arizona is on that plane. Mark is on that plane. Lexie. Meredith. Cristina. Derek. They are all on that plane. And those that aren't, are trying to save April's life. She hardly feels Hunt squeeze her shoulder on his way past. "What are they doing?"

"What?" he turns back.

"Owen, are they dead?"

"I don't know."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: J.M. Flowers and I would like to thank everyone for reading and reviewing. This is just coming as it comes and we have no real plan but our predictions for the finale will unfold here. We hope you all continue to enjoy it!

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Her skin is sallow, pale, tinged with grey in the way one's is when they're breathing with the lungs of death. He sees her in his mind, hours earlier, when she'd begged him with shaking words.

"Chief, I have nothing left. Seattle Grace was my last option."

He thinks, fleetingly, that maybe it was second last.

The count begins again in his head; six doctors on the plane. Mark and Lexie, Arizona, Derek and Meredith. Cristina. Cristina. Cristina. And now Kepner is taking even shakier breaths in one of his trauma rooms and he's not sure how much more he can take - not sure he even knows how to begin the words to tell the others.

But he can't not tell them. He can't repeat Henry. He can't repeat losing Teddy.

Not if he's already losing _her_.

* * *

The smell of gasoline is everywhere. The trees will catch on fire soon. When the plane blows up. What's left of it. Arizona turns her head; the blood is caking on her face. A scream is dying on her open lips. Screaming isn't helping. She can't walk. But she can hear. Lexie is trapped under the tail of the plane. Someone needs to call the police. Her phone left her hands a long time ago. Would they even get service out here?

Meredith is screaming for Derek. The pilot is climbing out the busted windshield. Mark is talking to Lexie, begging her. Cristina is surveying the plane. She turns around. "Where is roller girl?"

Mark snaps his head up. "Robbins?" He shuffles the pine needles under his hands. "Robbins!"

Arizona is on the other side of the nose of the plane. They can just barely see her when she yelps. Cristina skids to her side. "Shit, Robbins."

"They're broken," she manages.

"I can see that," Cristina snaps. Arizona's right tibia is snapped in half, protruding through a bloody rip in her scrubs. Her left femur is demented, broken in two places.

"I can't find Derek," Meredith comes up next to Cristina. "Oh my god."

The pilot joins them. Cristina directs him to go help Mark. "We need to move her," Cristina says to Meredith. "If that gasoline catches and she can't run, she's done for."

* * *

This might be karma, she thinks; try to steal another girl's boyfriend with the words "I love you," and get pinned under a plane. It's a cruel game of Murphy's Law is what it is, is what it is.

Do brains stutter? She doesn't remember if she's read that somewhere, but it would make sense. Maybe hers is, what with the whole not being able to feel her body situation. A stutter would make sense, is what it would do.

Oh God.

She wishes she could scream like Arizona was - that's brave, really. A good sign. Arizona is a mom, and babies scream all the time, so maybe moms need to scream. She's not a mom, so that must be why there's no sound in her lungs. (Or her throat? Chest? Vocal chords?) She left Mark for that very reason, even though she'd take it all back now if she could. The baby's cute. She has enough moms.

It's karma.

Shit, she thinks, now someone's banging. We got in a plane crash and now someone's going to pretend they're a drummer? She just wants to sleep, now that the screaming is gone, she doesn't need music when there's a pounding inside her skull.

She wishes the whole world would just shut up, but that's karma.

It's karma.

* * *

Callie's head is in her hands, tears flowing through the spaces between her fingers. She hasn't moved from the chair she sank into. She's tried Arizona's phone three times, but it goes straight to voicemail. It went down in the middle of the wilderness. Maybe there was no service. The plane crashed. Arizona always hated planes. She wasn't even supposed to be on it!

The urge to find and kill Karev boils up between her ribs. He was supposed to be on that plane. And then she wouldn't be here worrying about Arizona.

She twists her head, confused. "Mark."

Mark was on the plane.

Her cell phone is in her hands, the slickness of tears coating the screen. She presses it to her ear. "Pick up. Pick up. Dammit, pick up!"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: J.M. Flowers and I appreciate all of your wonderful feedback! We are hoping to have this finished before the finale airs, but if not we hope that you'll continue to read. Four more days!

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He tells Bailey first, while she's leaning over Kepner's IV drip with tears in her eyes. It's a cowardly move, but he's hoping she'll take a bit of control, maybe tell him what to do.

Because he doesn't, know what to do. Not when Cristina could be dead and he forgot to tell her that he loves her, that he'd go to the ends of the Earth for her if he had a second chance.

Bailey was the one who said he wasn't a bad person.

Except she curls into herself for a moment, as though she's trying to rip her insides out, before standing up straight again and wiping at her face with her scrub top.

"Where's Torres?"

The conference room, maybe. That's where she collapsed into a chair. He doesn't think he'd be walking around the hospital if he was just losing a wife and not being the Chief.

Bailey doesn't tell him what to do, she just turns away. But he's still the cowardly one. That's still him.

* * *

The air is devoid of sound, except the fire crackling. When the ringing starts, it's so out of place they all think they are imagining it. Meredith's head turns first, looking around wildly to locate the source. He realizes that it's him. Mark lets go of Lexie's hand and backs out from underneath the tail of the plane. Lexie's eyes are glassing over. She hasn't made a sound. He pulls the phone out of his pocket. The screen is cracked, but it responds when he presses it to answer the call. "Callie?"

Everyone stops to look at him. How is he getting service?

"Callie? I can't hear you," he says, pressing his hand to his other ear.

A look passes between the twisted sisters and they dig for their own phones. Meredith's screen is shattered. But Cristina's responds. One tiny bar of services peaks on it.

"Callie! The plane crashed! Call the police!" he yells it like a mantra over and over, slowly, hoping that she can pick out his words through the static. "I'm fine. Arizona is alive."

Cristina and Meredith got her moved away from the accident. Her screams of pain had torn at their eardrums, but at least she was safe. She wouldn't die in a fireball when the fire reached the gasoline spill. They could fix her legs. The pilot was keeping her company.

"Callie? Callie!"

The phone goes dead. He looks at the rest of them for a moment. And then he is back under the plane. Holding Lexie's hand, watching her blood dribble from her mouth. If they move the metal crushing her, she'll die. Almost immediately. But if they don't...it looks like she's going to die anyway.

"I love you too, Lex."

* * *

Bailey falters, the world is falling apart around her. Like when she screamed at the elevators and God and anyone who was listening because a sweet, sweet boy was bleeding to death in the hallway. Or when Callie was the one on the table, words slurred with internal bleeding. She falters again now, just outside the conference room.

Six of her people were on that plane. Six of her people.

And now Callie's screaming, because how the hell is the world supposed to make sense when a plane crashes? When your wife is on board? When your child might one day ask who that woman is in the pictures?

Cristina was on that plane, too. And Owen is sitting at April's bedside looking more lost than ever. And where the fuck is Teddy to show them all how to pretend like they're okay?

She falters. Let's the world crumble around her. And then she barrels ahead; they're Callie's people, too.

* * *

She must really be losing it, because she swears she can almost feel the edges of someone's palm pressing against her own. And it must be in her head, the voice of Mark. She thinks he might be saying I love you, but that can't be right. He loves Julia. Everyone loves Julia. She's perfect.

Julia wants children, wants Mark, wants a future. She operates on people's eyes, spends afternoons with Mark and Sofia even though she's not her mom. And Lexie couldn't do that, when it mattered. Lexie was too busy being "smart" and naive and an absolute idiot.

Julia can say I love you and hear it whispered back. Lexie can taste blood.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: J.M. Flowers and I appreciate your reviews! We love knowing that you are all excited about the finale! We hope you continue to enjoy this. Hopefully we get it done by tomorrow night!

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"Mark!"

Callie is screaming into the phone. Repeating, like a banshee call. Bailey covers her ears but the other woman breaks down into sobs, clutching the phone in a vice grip.

"Mark."

"Callie," Bailey says softly, prying at Callie's nails until her fingers give way and she can remove the phone from her grasp. The call was lost before she arrived. It's just touched the conference table when Callie burrows her head into Bailey's shoulder.

"He answered," Callie chokes out. "He's alive. But the static -"

"I know," Bailey rubs her back, tears misting her own eyes. If Mark is alive then maybe the others made it too.

"Plane - it crashed. He said something - something about police," Callie sits up. "Fine. Arizona. That's all I could make out. Bailey, what if she's dead?"

Bailey's hands grasp Callie's shoulders, shaking her slightly. "She is not dead. You hear me? None of them are going to die. The doctors of this hospital have been through hell and back. They are the greatest doctors I know and the universe is a screwed up place if it even thinks about taking them from us. If they are fighting for their lives out there, what are they going to think when they find out you're sitting on your ass in a conference room sobbing your eyes out like Old Faithful instead of getting them help? Buck up, Torres. Arizona didn't abandon you when your idiot ass took off your seat belt and went flying through a windshield like a damn circus monkey."

Callie can't help but laugh at Bailey's analogy. "I'll go call the state police."

"Damn right you will," Bailey says. Callie hugs her and leaves the room. Bailey waits until the door clicks shut to crawl into herself like a wilting flower. Seattle Grace Mercy West has been through so much, they have lost so many good people. How much more can they take?

* * *

She's aware enough to know she's not in heaven, and this is definitely not the passage of John 3:16. She has not been given eternal life - she's just not dead yet.

Which is a shame, really. She wanted to be dead. She wanted to stop caring about retaking her boards, or where she was going to work next year, or whether she was going to have to go back home to the farm. And she really didn't want to go back home.

She opens her eyes just the slightest, just enough to know that Dr. Hunt is in the chair beside her bed. That's enough for her to shut the world out again; to pretend that maybe she really is dead. Because he took it from her. He took everything. Her last resort.

She thinks if she was capable of hate, she'd hate him.

She wants to open her mouth and tell him to leave her alone, but she doesn't know how. She just wants to go back to sleep.

* * *

Maybe it's because she is a doctor and is used to hearing screams of pain, but Arizona hears the yelling first. Blood loss is making her dizzy and a quick turn of her head sends stars to blind her eyes. It's a male voice. She blinks to clear her vision.

"What is it?" the pilot asks. She has never met him before but he's sitting by her side like they've known each other for years. Like she should've done with Nick when she had the chance.

"Don't you hear that?"

They are quiet for a moment. Another yell crashes through two thick maples to the left.

"Derek?" Arizona tries to call out but she can't push enough air from her compromised lungs to make the sound more than a high pitched squeak.

"Derek?" the pilot turns back to her. "The one who is missing?"

Arizona nods.

"Stay here," he says before he can catch himself. "Sorry. I'll be right back."

He isn't used to running, but the adrenaline in his system carries him between trees and down a short embankment. He stops, waiting for another yell to orient his path. There, to the right this time. Grey boulders are peaking out of the ground and when he looks over their ledge he sees a bleeding man in blue scrubs sitting with his back to them.

"Derek?"

The man looks up. "Yeah."

"Thank god."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Down to the wire :) enjoy

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She's been clinging to Cristina because she needs her: to be her person, because Derek is God knows where; to tell her what the hell is happening because she can't seem to remember. And what about Zola? Was Zola on the plane?

"Zola's back in Seattle, Meredith. We were in a plane crash."

And what about Derek? Where were they going?

"Derek got sucked out the side of the plane!"

Derek. Derek. Derek.

A change in Arizona's screams pulls her away from Cristina, back towards where they left her sitting with the pilot, away from the gasoline and the fire, with her two broken legs. She can remember that much, that's a good sign. Arizona's pointing, up and over some rocks towards a ditch, a drag in the forest floor. She's alone.

Where's the pilot?

"Derek," Arizona manages, gasping around the word, "He's down there."

Is he alive? Are we all alive? And she wavers at this word, because Lexie is laying pinned beneath the plane and it's way too much like Stan in the ambulance all those years ago but it has to count if they're all breathing, right? It has to count.

"I think he's alive," she whispers, before her eyes roll backwards into her head.

Derek.

* * *

"The police are collaborating with the TSA. They've sent out a search and rescue team." Callie finds Owen sitting by April's bedside. He should've been the one to call the police, this is his hospital. April looks better, there is color in her cheeks and her eyes are fluttering, as if she's trying to keep them closed.

"You called the police?" Owen questions.

"You should've," Callie snaps, taking April's hand. Hazel eyes slid toward her under barely open eyelids. A sharp stab of grief hits Callie in the chest. "I got in touch with Mark. The plane crashed. But there was so much static that was all I could understand. It crashed Owen."

Through her tears, she watches his eyes get wide. April struggles to whisper, "What?"

"The Boise team," Owen says, taking her other hand. "The plane crashed."

April manages to jerk her hand away from Owen's light grasp, but the hurt spreads like fire up her arm. She looks back to Callie. "Are they?"

"We don't know."

* * *

"You're the pilot, right?" Derek asks the man helping him limp up the embankment. He's hurt, but not badly. Several pine trees helped break his fall and he pulled himself to the rocks. But he couldn't make it up the hill alone.

"Jerry," the pilot says.

"Nice to meet you," Derek wheezes. At least a few of his ribs are broken. "How are the others?"

"Alive, I think. Arizona - the blonde one - broke both of her legs. I think the others are okay. Someone is stuck under the back of the plane. Lexie, I think?"

"Derek!"

Meredith's screaming reaches his ears. The men clear the two maples and make it to the clearing where Arizona is resting. But the pilot notices that she is slumped at an odd angle. "She fell over, blacked out. I can't wake her up. Oh my god, Derek. Are you okay?"

"Ribs broken," Jerry helps him sit down next to Arizona on the forest floor. "Pine trees caught me."

Meredith kisses him. Her hands feel a tear in his shirt and when she touches him, he screams. Tentatively, she pulls the rip open. A branch is poking out of his ribs. "Can you breathe?"

"Yeah, but it's hard. It hurts."

Punctured lung. Where is God when you need him?

* * *

"Mark?" she whispers, eyes looking clear for the first time since he grabbed her hand.

"I'm here, Lex, I'm here," he promises, grasping tighter. Her pulse is thready, jumping beneath the pressure of his fingers in little spurts.

She smiles, the tugging of her lips releasing more blood to dribble down her chin. "I love you, Mark."

"I love you, too, we're gonna get you out of here."

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly. "Tell Mer -" she coughs, "Thank you."

"Lexie, we're gonna get you out of here," he says as soft as he can, the words creaking at the edges of his throat. He's trying so hard not to cry.

"I love you, Mark," she whispers, one last time.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: J.M. Flowers and I would like to express our thanks for your attention to our little drabble adventure. We hope that you all enjoy our version of what we believe could have happened in the Season 8 finale. We've been loving your comments, so let us know what you think!

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The sounds of a helicopter pulls their attention to the sky. The pilot stands up and looks down at Meredith, Derek, and a still unconscious Arizona. "Stay here. I'll go get them."

The adrenaline has worn down, working its way out of his system. He stumbles but makes it to the plane just in time to see a rescue team running toward Mark and Cristina. Not running. They've stopped. They are yelling at him, to run. Fire has leapt into the trees. Gasoline is pooling on the ground. Too late he realizes, "It's going to explode."

He's never known heat like the way the world erupts when they fire touches the gas. It knocks him on his back.

* * *

The plane crashed. The plane _crashed_.

With Dr. Shepherd. And Meredith. Cristina. Dr. Sloan. Lexie. Dr. Robbins.

Oh God, and Dr. Torres is holding her hand. And she tried to kill herself in a supply closet. And everyone could be dead and she's not. She was the one who was supposed to die. They were in a plane crash and she just injected an overdose of epinephrine into her bloodstream and this is not how this day was supposed to go.

Her chest heaves upwards, her muscles already clenching, her left side going numb. Her heart is stopping she realizes in the last moment before the world goes as dark as Callie's eyes looking down on her. They're always looking down on her.

* * *

Mark and Cristina reach the rescue team, away from the explosion behind them. "Lexie Grey. She's trapped under that right there."

He points to the tail of the plane. The fire hasn't caught there yet.

"She's going to bleed out as soon as you lift it up."

"We'll airlift her first then, give her the best shot we can. Anymore?"

Cristina points in the other direction. "If they found Derek, there should be three doctors and the pilot over there. One of them has two broken legs and has lost a lot of blood."

"Let's get to work men." The five man rescue team moves toward the plane, trying to judge the fire's stability as they plan to get Lexie out. Mark runs up behind them, demanding to help. Three men brace the front while Mark slides his body back underneath the metal to wrap his arms around Lexie's small body. Her eyes are closed, but she's still breathing. He hears the call above the roar of the fire "One, two, three!" and suddenly finds himself with a lot more room. On his knees, he pulls Lexie to him, cradling her in his arms as her legs come free of the strut that was trapping them. He backs into the heat of the fire creeping up on them. Two men help him strap her onto the stretcher and then they are running for the helicopter, desperate to keep her alive.

"There is another chopper on the way," one of the remaining three rescuers tells Cristina has they make their way to the other doctors, giving the fire a wide birth. "Where are the rest of them?"

* * *

They are sitting in the conference room, staring blankly at the phone. There is a void causing Bailey to be unaware that tears are streaming down her face and Callie to forget that she should've been in a meeting an hour ago. They are waiting for the phone to ring. They are waiting from a sign from God that no one else will die today. Because they can't take it. The hospital can't lose anyone else. Owen startles them when he opens the door, joining their wake silently. He leans back in a leather chair. The silence is overwhelming.

The phone rings. At first they don't realize that the answer is on the other end. They reach but Bailey grabs the receiver first. "They found them."

Callie breaks down in relief. "Thank God."

"Lexie and Mark are on their way, she's bleeding out." And just like that she's Bailey again. "Well let's move people."

"Arizona?" Callie asks through tears.

* * *

She swears she can hear something familiar - a helicopter? For just a moment she's standing on the helipad, the wind rushing through her hair, a child being airlifted in for her help. But, no, that's not right. It's a different sort of helicopter, farther away. Like it's landing in a clearing.

Help.

Her eyelids flutter, the smell of gasoline gets stronger. She chokes on the fumes. There's a blast, a wave of heat that dances past, the crushing sound pulling her back to consciousness.

And Derek's there. Meredith.

"Callie?" she whispers, because that's all she really wants. She wants Callie, holding her hand. She wants her legs in casts. She wants to be home. Callie is home.

* * *

When they reach the other doctors, Meredith has helped the pilot away from the fire. Her eyes connect with Cristina's. Cristina smiles and nods. They are going to be okay. Two of the rescuers kneel in the pine needles to stabilize Arizona's legs.

Arizona's eyes flutter open. She is confused, disoriented. "Where is Callie?"

"Your doctors are waiting for you. The other chopper will airlift you to your hospital."

Derek looks down and brushes the hair out of Arizona's eyes. She's going to start screaming from pain again in a minute. "We're going to see Callie. You just hang in there."


End file.
